Valve says New York Attorney General's videogame comments are 'a distraction'

New York's lawsuit accuses Valve of violating its gambling laws through loot boxes, which it claims "enable gambling by enticing users to pay for the chance to win a rare virtual item of significant monetary value." The suit says Valve "has made billions of dollars luring its users, many of whom are teenagers or younger, to engage in gambling in the hopes of winning expensive virtual items that they can cash in on," and seeks to stop Valve from "continuing to promote illegal gambling" and to pay disgorgement and fines.

The state's press release then added, without connection to the gambling claim, that "Valve’s promotion of games that glorify violence and guns helps fuel the dangerous epidemic of gun violence, particularly among young gamers who can become numbed to grave violence before their brains are fully developed." The statement is utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand and, the article says, entirely unsupported; it's the sort of claim once trotted out by Jack Thompson.

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