wrote about the legal implications of World of Warcraft\u2018s third-party gold resellers<\/a> nearly two decades ago.<\/p>\n\u201cI think companies have a pretty strong [legal] argument if they make some attempts to police [third-party resellers]\u2014they obviously can\u2019t fully control what people do outside their platform,\u201d Methenitis said. \u201cBut if they turn a blind eye to it and allow it, I think they could be found liable.\u201d Loiterman agreed that Valve \u201cproviding the tools that enable those [third-party] markets and tolerating them creates some degree of responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJudges tend to be cautious\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, the lawyers Ars spoke to were generally skeptical that courts would determine that Valve\u2019s loot box system constitutes illegal gambling. Cases making similar arguments about other loot box systems have failed in other jurisdictions, \u201cin part because gambling laws were drafted with casinos and lotteries in mind,\u201d Loiterman said. \u201cJudges tend to be cautious about breaking from an emerging consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoeg agreed that \u201cthe entire question [in this case] is novel, and\u2026 the courts are (small-\u2018c\u2019) conservative institutions, not generally wanting to adopt novel arguments without direction from the legislative branches.\u201d Even if Valve\u2019s loot box system \u201cmay start to smell a bit like gambling,\u201d Hoeg said he would \u201chonestly be surprised if the courts went along with the characterization without a new law aimed at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI view it as a weak case offered primarily for political grandstanding\/coverage over real legal effect,\u201d Hoeg concluded. \u201cWe shall see, though.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cCalling it gambling because a user could, through several indirect steps, convert an item into cash risks stretching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-305431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}