The thing is Valve is clearly aware of the fact that it’s getting kids addicted to gambling. They have the data. It’s extremely ubiquitous. This has been an ongoing issue for a while and Valve has rightly been criticized for willfully getting kids addicted.

Yes the parents have a responsibility to look after their kids. But that doesn’t give Valve a free pass, particularly when they used dark patterns to appeal to children.

> Yes the parents have a responsibility to look after their kids.

How? Individual parents can't fight off predatory corporations entrenched in mainstream culture going after their kids. They need to make a go at Valve.

edit: Rereading, I guess that was kinda the point you were making?

I agree we should go after companies clearly engaging in profit-above-all, making societies and future generations worse from the start. Make them hurt, make them bleed bad, take tens % of their global revenue (not profit, thats easy to game).

But - parents are responsible too, more than anybody else. Gaming is generally bad for kids, physically and mentally. Come on, everybody who cares knows that for past 2 decades. Screens generally fuck up kids properly, the younger and more interactive the worse the result. Kids need tons of physical fun and tons of continuous social interaction in larger groups, doesnt matter what some echo chambers claim, 'digital skills' are not something your kid can anyhow miss on.

Its supremely easier to fuck off kids, leave me alone, my adult life is oh so hard already, here play some more, give me some break. Adults being glued to phones hard themselves. Results are what they are. Its called universally bad parenting, by psychologists and various experts for a reason. No sympathies for parents there, but I feel sorry for all those kids whose potential is squished into various anxieties and abysmal social behavior.

Talking all this and much more as parent of 2 small ones, luckily for them environment we are in is firmly agreeing with all above.

When you say easier to simply earn, I understand it as you think they do this to benefit their playerbase / users.

Yes, it says that they want a bigger cut of the sales when those items are sold. Not sad this hits the trading sites as that will also likely mean fewer will get scammed as they will stay in valves market, but saying valve is doing this for the users is crap, they do it for the profits, and maybe to stay under the radar of additional lawsuits regarding gambling laws around the world.

> The fact that they made this change to make these items far easier to simply earn should say a lot about the ethos of the company though.

Them letting it happen for literal decades while being highly aware of what they're doing says more about the ethos than this, in the grand scheme, tiny move. Don't get me wrong, me as a person who does not participate in any kind of this gray-area gambling has basically a lot of net positives from Steam and Valve. But this doesn't make them a pro-consumer company.

They're still greedy capitalists, and it shows in many different perspectives. They may be "better" to consumers than the average, but still.