Valve has been under a lot of pressure recently, after regulators discovered that gamers were gambling with in-game items from CS:GO or other Steam games. Unfortunately, those same regulators, and some of the public, have focused on Valve instead of the websites that actually host gambling. As such Valve has had to defend itself time and time again, most recently against Washington state Gambling Commission.
The same commission argued recently that Valve was promoting or facilitating a black market through its item trading system in Steam and in the games the company develops. Valve has now offered a response to those accusations. In a letter seen by Engadget, the company says:
As we have explained on multiple occasions, Valve is not engaged in gambling or the promotion of gambling, and we do not 'facilitate' gambling. We were surprised and disappointed that the Commission chose to publicly accuse Valve of illegal activity and threaten our employees with criminal charges.
Valve, which has gone after numerous gambling websites and their Steam bots, went on to say that if the Commission wanted to assist Valve and provide it with the names, websites or Steam IDs of those breaking the law the company would gladly take action.
However, the company, which at this point is clearly sick of dealing with such allegations, stated unequivocally how it felt about the Commission’s inquiry saying:
If there is a specific criminal statute or regulation you believe Valve is violating, please provide a citation. We are not aware of any such law that Steam or its games are violating.
We imagine the company’s lawyers dropped a few dozen mics afterwards, though there’s little doubt that given the popularity of Steam, CS:GO and online gambling this problem will go away anytime soon.
Source: Engadget
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