Valve facing class-action lawsuit in state of Washington

Valve has been sued by law firm Hagens Berman in a class-action suit on behalf of two players in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

It is virtually a copy-and-paste of the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Leticia James, and it is the second lawsuit against Valve in the US in the past few weeks.

The suit in Washington cites the same "near miss" gold item example from the New York State lawsuit that has since been debunked, as the feature was removed from CS in 2018.

In announcing the lawsuit, Steven Berman of Hagens Berman said, "We believe Valve deliberately engineered its gambling platform and profited enormously from it." The plaintiffs argue that the case system is illegal under Washington law because money is paid based on a chance outcome for items that can be exchanged for real-world value.

The complaint says that Valve shouldn't be allowed to retain the "billions of dollars in profits" from the alleged ill-gotten gains.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that Steam requires users to be 13 years of age to create an account without parental consent or age verification in place.

Valve has not publicly responded to this lawsuit yet.