alt Hacker NewsI don't disagree with most of your statement, but Valve has and continues to make lots of money from loot boxes in both CS and TF2. Just want to point out that they do do stuff like that too.
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And I forgot to mention in-game currency.
I didn't say Valve is perfect. But they're definitely worth the money I spend there. Great service, proper support, regional pricing, and the list goes on. Everything works today. The work they've put on Proton/Linux gaming easily wins my support.
Did they screw up sometimes? Sure. And I'm from the days when Steam didn't exist. I remember the NoSTEAM game versions in shady sites, including Half-Life 2. Steam was hated with a passion back then. They won by ultimately providing great value and service.
I feel like a lot of things Valve does, with the exception of loot boxes, are the bare minimum of what a good (not great) companies should do.
So of course every single company look at Valve and decide they should do the complete opposite of everything Valve does except loot boxes.
I agree that turning CS into a casino wasn’t a tasteful choice on Valve’s part but as someone who has played CS at least once a week for decades I can understand that they needed to find a way to cover server costs somehow. I paid $15 dollars for CS:GO and have clocked 4,500 hours in the game. I don’t gamble but I’d rather those who choose to fund the server costs than Valve charge a monthly subscription to everyone. Skin sales alone would have accomplished this without having to have loot boxes and keys and that’s where I think Valve went overboard with it. Also, for a game that provides so much revenue I expect better anti-cheat and more VAC bans, which are rare.
Maybe hot take in this age, but loot boxes for cosmetics aren't a problem when you can get cosmetics by just playing.
CS lootboxes are the least shitty ones in the entire industry. There is 0% pay to win, if anything the skins are a disadvantage because they usually stand out.
They also didn't/don't put a stop to the gambling sites, scams and non-scams, done with those lootboxes.
We have an epidemic of addiction to gambling in youth, where the arrow points at lootboxes as the gateway drug..