I don't like that crap either, but Valve's contribution to that dreck is really easy to ignore in Steam. It's the game designers and business types that put gambling features in games, and that is the precise moral equivalent of selling cigarettes to kids. You might fault Steam for hosting games like that, but then you'll be faulting every platform, including the free ones, because lets face it, learning to code doesn't require passing an ethics class, or even taking one.

My point is that you're probably better off being repulsed at someone else because in the scheme of things Valve really isn't that bad, IMHO.

The CS:GO and dota2 (developed by valve) item market places were probably some of the earlier and more influential loot box / gambling games.

It all started when they turned Team Fortress 2 into a free-to-play game (remember all the memes about the "hats"?). The move originated from Yanis Varoufakis who later became Greek minister of finance.

https://archive.fo/IXtkd

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanis_Varoufakis

I have over 4000 hours in dota and I've never bought a loot box or cared about skins. I never felt like I was pushed into it. You can play those games without any issues even if you don't buy the skins. Contrast that with games like Hearthstone which uses packs with random cards as a way to pay to win and which require a lot of money to get into.. I see nothing wrong with Valve's business model.

Same. I don’t worship Valve like some people do, but I can confirm that I never felt pushed into buying any of their micro transactions. 2000 hours in Dota 2 and I think $40 spent total. Comparing with coworkers who’ve played similar hours of League of Legends, they were saying numbers ranging from $600-12k. I looked up posts on /r/Hearthstone when I was considering playing the game and they were talking in the range of $500-$3000. Basically $200 to make a decent deck every new season. That’s too rich for my blood.

I have no doubt that some people spend money they can’t afford to even in Dota 2/CS GO, but that feels more of a choice than other games.

CS:GO player. I have wasted money there. But I'm getting my Deck out of it and still have lot left... So it could be worse. I really think their model the least bad one. At least you have chance to reuse the money you spend.

$600 to 12k??

You must be kidding. I mean at that point you'd hope some preservation instinct kicks in and you realize you are trading real dollars for a few bits on a server, and you go buy a chess set and play it down at the park.

Wait until you hear about state lotteries and casinos =P

It is amazing to me that people will just walk in with their pay check and leave drunk with pennies. Some serious neurochemistry going on there.

Gambling and addiction affect different people differently. Saying you did not fall into the trap is not an argument for the practice not being abusive.

It also does not account for the presence of microtransactions influencing the design of the rest of the game towards selling more microtransactions which affects you even if you never buy anything. Granted, this could be considered as "payment" for a free game but once microtransactions/lootboxes/NFTs/whatever have or will become acceptable there, they spread to paid games too.

Like others said, the start of these things was team fortress 2, also a valve game.

At least in dota2, you don't have to buy anything to play the game in its entirety. The lootbox and market places are only for cosmetics which doesn't affect the game play in any manner.

...which is a pretty fair business in my opinion.

Valve with csgo and dota are like saints compared to something like EA or Riot when it comes to microtransactions.

Or gacha games in general. Secondary market seems exploitative. But in the end it is actually a way to get some money back to spend on other games.

There really isn't such a thing as cosmetic-only microtransactions in a fast paced game. If it changes how something looks, it affects gameplay.

And beyond that, the rest of the game is not being designed independently of microtransactions and that affects you even if you never buy any.

The cosmetics don't give any advantage to the buyer that is noticeable by pro players. And that's a good enough definition of cosmetic-only to me.

They have been selling "NFT"s for 10 years.

They have been selling unique items yes, but I would not call them NFT...

A few of the hats have essentially been non-fungible tokens, almost indistinguishable from the way people have been interacting with these picture NFTs. The hats in question were one-of-a-kind and had an id that allowed you to check the provinence of them, if you kept track of the hats in the market.

They certainly weren't on a blockchain though, or give the user exclusive ownership over them.

Yeah, 100% fungible items.