Valve have updated the developer guidelines for releasing a game on Steam, making it clear that the scourge of mobile gaming advertising-based business models are not going to work on Steam.
They won’t because they’re the ones making money from it.
I was (trying to) be tongue in cheek about it, so yes of course they won’t. I just don’t like the idea of propping up Valve as some incorruptible, can-do-no-wrong company. They know they’re causing children to gamble and it’s not that they don’t care, they actively encourage it.
The sites that manage these gambling rings aren’t owned by Valve, and reporting the sites doesn’t get them taken down by the domain providers.
In Steam the trades look the same as any regular trades between players, so if they wanted to stop the gambling trades it would require turning off all trades.
Do you know if anyone has come up with some way they could track and stop the gambling sites?
I think the issue is less the existence of gambling sites, and more the fact that underage gamers are often the target of the sites. An age verification for trading would be the easiest, but Valve has taken a hard stance against collecting identification for any reason. The age verification could come from the websites but that seems very unlikely since the websites are often illegal. If enough countries (especially America) legalized online gambling but required ID verification, the sites may be more likely to implement it, but that is so far of a scenario there really is no prediction.
I was (trying to) be tongue in cheek about it, so yes of course they won’t. I just don’t like the idea of propping up Valve as some incorruptible, can-do-no-wrong company. They know they’re causing children to gamble and it’s not that they don’t care, they actively encourage it.
So no recognition of any good until they are perfect?
I’d put intentionally getting kids to gamble pretty fucking far below ‘perfect.’
I really can’t think of how they would stop this.
Like genuinely.
The sites that manage these gambling rings aren’t owned by Valve, and reporting the sites doesn’t get them taken down by the domain providers.
In Steam the trades look the same as any regular trades between players, so if they wanted to stop the gambling trades it would require turning off all trades.
Do you know if anyone has come up with some way they could track and stop the gambling sites?
I think the issue is less the existence of gambling sites, and more the fact that underage gamers are often the target of the sites. An age verification for trading would be the easiest, but Valve has taken a hard stance against collecting identification for any reason. The age verification could come from the websites but that seems very unlikely since the websites are often illegal. If enough countries (especially America) legalized online gambling but required ID verification, the sites may be more likely to implement it, but that is so far of a scenario there really is no prediction.