Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 players from the Netherlands who try to login to Steam today will see a notification message that from today onwards they cannot use the Steam Marketplace to trade these two games. The message that appears on the Steam client explains that the changes have been made after Valve came under fire from the Dutch Gaming Authority (aka Kansspelautoriteit Netherlands).
Indeed, since last April the Dutch Gaming Authority has found ten games that violate the country’s Better Gaming Act. While the full list of games was not made public, the regulatory agency warned that “enforcement action” would be taken against all games that fail to meet legal requirements by June 20.
Publishers of the CS:GO and Dota 2 games have been given eight weeks to comply with Dutch laws by removing loot boxes or fines. Dutch authorities have also said that it is possible that both games will be banned forever in the Netherlands.
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And here below is the statement that appears to players from the Netherlands when they first open the Steam client and we have tried to translate:
Dear Dota 2 Customers,
In May, we received two letters from the Dutch Kansspelautoriteit, alleging that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 contained ‘loot boxes’ in violation of the Dutch Betting and Gaming Act. Kansspelautoriteit’s allegations differ from how other countries think about loot boxes, so we hired Dutch legal counsel, took a look at the recent Study into Loot Boxes published by Kansspelautoriteit, and learned more about Dutch law. We still don’t understand or agree with Kansspelautoriteit’s legal conclusions, and we’ve responded to explain more about CS:GO and Dota 2.
Meanwhile, we have threats from Kansspelautoriteit to prosecute Valve if we don’t fix by 20 June. The letters don’t tell us how to do that, but The Study into Loot Boxes does contain one rather simple statement:
“Loot boxes are against the law if in-game items from Loot boxes are transferable. Loot boxes are not unlawful if the in-game items from the loot boxes are non-transferable.”
So for now our only practical alternative is to disable Steam Marketplace trading and transfers for CS:GO and Dota 2 items for Dutch customers. We apologize to you for this inconvenience. We hope that, after more engagement with Kansspelautoriteit, they can fine-tune their lawsuit and we can find a less convenient solution.
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With trading and Steam Marketplace disabled for users from the Netherlands, in-game loot boxes no longer violate Dutch law, Valve said this was only a temporary measure until they found a better solution.
