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Article: Valve compares its loot boxes to Labubus in lawsuit defense

Impact Score

5 / 10

AI Summary (Processed Content)

The New York Attorney General is suing Valve, alleging its digital loot boxes constitute illegal gambling. Valve defends the practice by comparing it to randomized physical products like trading card packs or blind-box toys.

A key distinction is Valve's control over the Steam Marketplace, the primary platform for trading these digital items, and its commission on sales. This control and the establishment of economic value could be a crucial legal factor in determining if the loot boxes are legally defined as gambling.

The main topics covered are the NYAG lawsuit against Valve, Valve's defense comparing loot boxes to physical goods, and the legal significance of Valve's controlled marketplace.

Original URL

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/valve-compares-its-loot-boxes-to-labubus-in-lawsuit-defense/

Source Feed

Ars Technica

Published Date

2026-03-12 15:15

Fetched Date

2026-03-12 12:30

Processed Date

2026-03-12 12:33

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Present

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Not Clustered

Raw Extracted Content

Last month, the New York Attorney General (NYAG) brought a lawsuit against Valve accusing the company of promoting “illegal gambling” through its randomized in-game loot boxes. On Wednesday, Valve issued its first public comment on the case, comparing its digital loot boxes to randomized real-world purchases like blind-bagged toys or packs of trading cards.
“Generations have grown up opening baseball card packs and blind boxes and bags, and then trading and selling the items they receive,” Valve wrote. “On the physical side, popular products used in this way include baseball cards, Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, and Labubu.”
Though that may seem like an apt comparison on the surface, Valve’s loot boxes differ from these real-world examples in large part because of Valve’s control of the Steam Marketplace, which serves as the only legitimate way to exchange or resell those items. While owners of real-world items are free to trade or sell them however they want, Valve has cracked down on many third-party sites that enable the exchange of in-game items—especially when those items are used as glorified chips for gambling games.
Lawyers told Ars last month that Valve’s control of that marketplace—and its 15 percent commission on item resale—helps establish the inherent economic value of the randomized items it sells, both to players and to Valve itself. That could be a crucial legal element in a courtroom in turning a mere “random purchase” into legally defined “gambling.”