The Dutch ജban on loot boxes has forced Valve 🅘to alter DOTA 2 to comply with localꦓ laws, and their solution looks suspiciously a ღlot like gambling.
At the♔ end of last month, the Dutch government’s ban on gambling in video games tookꦜ effect. This meant that loot boxes from all games, whether it be Overwatch, PUBG, or DOTA 2, were all illegal. Developers everywhere had 🎐to come up with some solution to take loot boxes out of their games, but only for players in the Netherlands (or Belgium, which also banned loot boxes, but we’re not talking about them right now).
Valve’s solution in DOTA 2 was ingenious. They simply revealed the contents of the loot box before the p🔜layer even buys it. Now it’s not gambling since the player can see what’s in the box, right?
Not so fast. As many an intelligent , this simply shifts what 🐠the Dutch player is gambling on. Sure, you can see what’s in the box you’re about to buy, but you can’t see what’s in the next box. And you can’t buy the next box until you 🦩buy💞 the current box.
In effect, rather than gambling on the loot box in front of you, you’re 🐓gambling on the next loot box in line.
It 𒈔also sucks for Dutch players, since now if you’ve already got what’s in the box presented you’re still forced to purc♕hase a duplicate to have a chance at buying something else.
Dutch players were quick to point out that while Valveꦛ’s solution was indeed cleve♔r, it’s unlikely to fly for very long. Europe tends to enforce both the spirit and letter of the law, and they don’t take kindly to American companies trying to skirt their regulations.
For Valve, th🦩is presents a problem. The only real solution is to create an entirely new storefront that shows every Dutch player exactly what’s in every box. At that point, it’s less like buying a loot box and simply buy cosmetic i🅺tems from an online storefront.
However, redesigning the entire DOTA 2 store would be expensive and time consuming for a developer that wants to get back into designing new games rather than continuously refi🅘ning their old ones.
We give it a few months tops before the Dutch 🐟government slams Valve w🌳ith a huge fine.
NEXT: MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR FINALLY REMOVES MI༺CROTRANSACTIONS AND LOOT BﷺOXES (9 MONTHS TOO LATE)