CS:GO Locks Belgians & Dutchies their cases

[Sfekke]

Source

Steam News Post

Patch Notes

 

We all know the Netherlands took action on lootboxes a little while ago.

CS:GO recently updated and locked them me out of their cases.

"Market and item trading were switched off after the Netherlands Gaming Authority ruled that some videogame loot boxes—it didn't reveal which—were in violation of the country's gambling laws and therefore had to be changed, with a deadline set for June 20. Valve said at the time that it didn't "understand or agree with" the ruling, and had contacted the Gambling Authority for clarification; in the meantime, "our only practical alternative is to disable trading and Steam," it explained."

 

I myself live in Belgium and I can confirm our beloved crates are officially locked.

Personally I feel quite happy, never opened loot boxes and what I did do is buy the skins directly.

What I am quite uncertain about is how a VPN wouldn't be easily able to bypass this?

Unless Valve binds this to what CC or PP you used and where it was located it is a simple IP based GEO-Lock .. it isn't hard to avoid if you really wanted to do so.

 

Anyone in Belgium/Netherlands that has an opinion about this?

 

Sidenote : 

Wondering what it looks like when I try to open a case?

Well they didn't implement a fancy message letting you know more and giving some proper information, we just get this :

 

[Sfekke]

39 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

might be tied to your steam locale, which might be tied to the locale of your main payment method o_o

 

actually I gotta question: are those with leftover keys able to unlock corresponding crates now? o_o

Nope, you just get to sell them on the steam market.

And I also think they could bind it to the payment method, but why bother probably their mindset.

 

40 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

They should instead stop sales of unlock keys to people in Belgium and Netherlands. Its those keys which are effectively the gambling element. And simple VPN should get around it because it doesn't make sense to continue blocking users when they go to another country where law isn't as stringent.

 

Seems Valve just being pissy about it and intentionally made repercussion worse than it needs to be, to have users in those regions backlash against the new gambling rules.

Yup, I totally agree with that, but on a global level.

We don't need loot boxes & keys, just let us the item instead, without fun-bucks please.

If I buy items for games with real $/€ I buy them directly, like TF2/CS:GO items. Why not get what you want instantly instead of pay 10x the prices to get what you don't want.

[Maslofski]

1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

They should instead stop sales of unlock keys to people in Belgium and Netherlands. Its those keys which are effectively the gambling element. And simple VPN should get around it because it doesn't make sense to continue blocking users when they go to another country where law isn't as stringent.

 

Seems Valve just being pissy about it and intentionally made repercussion worse than it needs to be, to have users in those regions backlash against the new gambling rules.

yeah, thats like a slot machine that lets you inset coins and pull the lever only to tell you it wont spin

[Christophe Corazza]

I guess I'll have to start putting my money into real gambling now...

[sazrocks]

Not cool, while I hate cases just locking them without any warning is not what they should have done. Some people have a LOT of these things.

[Jito463]

People unlock those crates?  I just delete them.......

[ZacoAttaco]

I wonder if Blizzard will do anything regarding Overwatch? I personally don't feel like Overwatch and CS:GO loot boxes are the same, but they have more similarities than differences so I wouldn't be surprised if they block in-game purchases of lootboxes in those countries too.

[Cookybiscuit]

Screwing with a VPN or any similar method to get around it will get you banned on Steam for 1000 years.

[aezakmi]

8 minutes ago, Cookybiscuit said:

Screwing with a VPN or any similar method to get around it will get you banned on Steam for 1000 years.

its funny how they ban people who use a VPN but don't ban any of the million cheaters in the game.

[ZacoAttaco]

38 minutes ago, aezakmi said:

its funny how they ban people who use a VPN but don't ban any of the million cheaters in the game.

Especially in CS:GO, Source engine seems to be so easy to mess with.

[Sfekke]

9 hours ago, Jito463 said:

People unlock those crates?  I just delete them.......

You sir are a man I can agree with

14 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

oh right forgot to ask: do the laws still apply if real money currency buys some intermediary to exchange for game money that can buy game-money-only keys to unlock chance crates?

 

(or slightly more directly using real money currency to buy game money to buy keys)

Nope, as far as I can tell it is because real euro's are involved.

I wouldn't mind this system in some games if it just had C-Bucks and 100 C-Bucks opened 1 case.

Obtaining those would be through gameplay, while yes the trading market will take a giant loss & skins will lose most value .. they already don't have any real value. Pixels on a screen aren't like real world investments, gold, real estate, etc etc.

[Soonercoop]

On 7/23/2018 at 2:34 AM, huilun02 said:

They should instead stop sales of unlock keys to people in Belgium and Netherlands. Its those keys which are effectively the gambling element. And simple VPN should get around it because it doesn't make sense to continue blocking users when they go to another country where law isn't as stringent.

 

Seems Valve just being pissy about it and intentionally made repercussion worse than it needs to be, to have users in those regions backlash against the new gambling rules.

Limiting the keys wouldn't be effective without a trade ban as well. I'm fairly certain you are reading too far into this and what actually happened is their legal team decided what was necessary and the changes were made accordingly to abide by The Netherlands' laws. If the people don't like the rules they should leverage their public opinion against their government, Valve is just playing by the rules.

[PlayStation 2]

4 hours ago, Arokhantos said:

I can see Blizzard offer coins to directly buy cosmetics with aka buy 40E worth of coins to buy same amount of cosmetics you would get from 50 lootboxes aka removing the rng element while keeping lootboxes as grind option, i think that is fair however i already think its fair since you get no dupes anymore anyway, the thing i hate about tf2 cs go dota 2 lootboxes is there always cosmetics wanted a lot they offer the option to trade so these items have huge value aka like a jackpot so you can sell those items for real money, this is why i consider those lootboxes gambling not Overwatch however there is a rng element but the items are not worth a fortune ever.

 

However i do hope Blizzard will be the first to make an example of what it should be like on t here own however i don't think they should be forced to do so.

In the case of Team Fortress 2, it somehow made its own community-ran economy. Its main draw isn't centered around selling items on the Steam Community Market for, for Valve anyway, something taxable.

That's where TF and CS deviate hard. Most CS items are purchased with actual money whether you like it or not, while in TF, you can trade items and since people find genuine non-straight cash value for those items, the market in that isn't solely centered around real world money.

In fact, only a small market outside of SCM in TF2 is centered around real world money. The majority of it is centered around the crate keys and the crafting metals.

[Castdeath97]

Good riddance then 

[Sfekke]

On 7/24/2018 at 8:20 PM, Dan Castellaneta said:

In the case of Team Fortress 2, it somehow made its own community-ran economy. Its main draw isn't centered around selling items on the Steam Community Market for, for Valve anyway, something taxable.

That's where TF and CS deviate hard. Most CS items are purchased with actual money whether you like it or not, while in TF, you can trade items and since people find genuine non-straight cash value for those items, the market in that isn't solely centered around real world money.

In fact, only a small market outside of SCM in TF2 is centered around real world money. The majority of it is centered around the crate keys and the crafting metals.

As an avid TF2 player I totally agree with this.

If you really get into that economy it is even possible to get "rich" without spending a single dime of real cash. Except for the premium pass, you do need that.

Turning weapon drops into scrap, that goes into reclaimed and eventually slowly but surely you'll rack up some refined.

Once you have that some smart trades later you doubled that, and so on and on.

 

That is the huge difference in trading from CS:GO -> TF2