CSGO and Dota 2 are locked from trading in the Netherlands after the loot box controversy

In April, a study of loot boxes by the Dutch gaming association concluded that 4 out of 10 games violate the country’s gambling laws. And what exactly these games are has not been announced at that time, the authorities warned that “criminal laws will be applied” to games that do not meet the legal requirements on June 20.

It seems, loot boxes in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 have been considered illegal. According to a report from tweakers.net (Posted on Reddit), players of both games received a ban message from Valve.

Posted by Reddit user hollandje, here’s the full announcement:

To Counter-Strike: Global Offensive customers,

In May, we received two letters from Dutch Kansspelautoriteit (Dutch gaming authority) stating that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Dota 2 contains ‘loot boxes’ in violation of the Gaming and Betting Constitution of the Netherlands. Netherlands. Kansspelautoriteit’s allegations are different from other countries’ thinking about loot boxes, so we hired a Dutch lawyer to learn Study into Loot Boxes published by Kansspelautoriteit, and learn more Dutch law. We still do not understand or agree on the legal conclusion of Kansspelautoriteit, and we will explain more about CS:GO and Dota 2.

In the meantime, we’ve received a warning from Kansspelautoriteit that will report Valve if we don’t tweak it by June 20. The letters don’t tell us how to tweak, but Study into Loot Boxes includes a simple statement like this:

“Loot boxes are against the law if in-game items opened from loot boxes are exchangeable. Loot boxes will not break the law if in-game items from loot boxes are not exchangeable.”

Therefore, from here on, the only reasonable way is to exchange keys and trade on the Steam Marketplace for CS:GO and Dota 2 items for Dutch users. We apologize for this inconvenience. We hope that, after working with Kansspelautoriteit, they will be able to adjust the legal requirements and we can find a solution with less inconvenience.

The move comes after Belgium attacked the loot box issue, with Belgian authorities also deprecating loot boxes in Overwatch, FIFA 18, and CS:GO in April. However, they haven’t set a deadline to do so. publishers have to adjust. But with what happened in the Netherlands, Belgium will surely soon solve the loot box problem.

Belgian authorities can criminally prosecute loot boxes in video games