You could find rare weapon skins in loot boxes in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The skins business was pretty good in CS: GO, which has now been replaced by Counter-Strike 2: players sometimes spent thousands of dollars on loot boxes, and rare skins were sometimes traded for five-figure amounts.
However, there was already resistance to this monetization practice. In 2018, for example, the sale of loot boxes had to be stopped in Belgium and the Netherlands. And now an Austrian court rulesthat it is illegal gambling according to local law.
A groundbreaking ruling?
The Viennese law firm Salburg sued a court in Styria on behalf of a player. Die Argumentation: The loot boxes with randomly generated content that can be purchased for real money are illegal gambling. The loot boxes are illegal because Valve does not have a gambling license. Therefore, the contracts concluded when selling loot boxes are void.
The court confirmed the plaintiffs’ view – probably also because the judge responsible had his own experience with Counter-Strike – and above allordered Valve to pay back the money spent on the loot boxes. Overall, this is about 14.096,58 Euro. The verdict is not yet final, but Valve’s chances of being successful in an appeal are probably pretty slim.
13:51
Counter-Strike 2 – Valve is even cheating on the Steam ratings for the new shooter
Because This is not the first lawsuit in Austria to reach such a conclusion. As early as March 2023, an Austrian court ruled that the FUT packs that can be purchased in FIFA were illegal gambling. Even though this lawsuit involved a much smaller amount, one hopes that such judgments will achieve more in terms of the bigger picture.
Litigation financier Richard Eibl even expects this in the foreseeable future the end of loot boxes in Austria
as he told our colleagues from Games economy emphasized. In this case, the Steam operators would have to worry about millions of dollars in annual sales.
According to Michael Linhard from the Salburg law firm, the court’s decision once again proves that no change to the Austrian gambling law is necessary. The judiciary is apparently already capable of doing so questionable monetization system
to push the bolt forward.
What do you think of the gambling ruling in Austria? Do you think that monetization systems like loot boxes should also be banned in this country? Or do you think that such business models don’t have to be fundamentally wrong? And have you already spent money on skins or something similar in some games? Feel free to tell us in the comments!
