Valve Hit With Second Class-Action Lawsuit Over CS2 Loot Boxes

Valve is now defending itself against two simultaneous legal challenges over loot boxes after law firm Hagens Berman filed a class-action complaint on March 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, accusing the Bellevue-based company of "knowingly operating unlawful gambling through its loot box system" in Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2.

The suit was brought on behalf of two named players and a proposed nationwide class of U.S. consumers who purchased loot box keys and allegedly lost money opening them. Plaintiffs are seeking billions of dollars in restitution, pointing to attorneys' estimates that Valve has sold billions of dollars' worth of Counter-Strike case keys over the years, making the system one of the company's largest revenue sources. An estimate cited by the New York attorney general's office puts the Counter-Strike skins market alone at over $4.3 billion as of last year.

The complaint characterizes Valve's loot box system as a "deliberate, carefully engineered revenue model," alleging it replicates casino mechanics through randomized rewards, near-miss animations, and unpredictable payout schedules designed to encourage repeated spending. The suit also targets Valve's dual revenue stream: the company profits from selling keys and takes a cut of user resales on the Steam Community Market.

Steve Berman, founder and managing partner of Hagens Berman, did not mince words about the firm's theory of the case. "We believe Valve deliberately engineered its gambling platform and profited enormously from it," he said. "Consumers played these games for entertainment, unaware that Valve had allegedly already stacked the odds against them."

A significant portion of the complaint focuses on younger players. Berman argued that Valve failed to implement basic safeguards: "Valve knew children were on the other end of these transactions. Rather than protect young players through age verification or a parental consent mechanism, we believe they rigged the game to extract more money from them."

Not every element of the complaint is landing cleanly, however. The near-miss animation example cited in the filing, which is also used in New York attorney general Letitia James's February suit that called loot boxes "quintessential gambling," is factually disputed. As Dexerto reported, it is not actually possible to get a near miss on a gold item in Counter-Strike 2; Valve changed the mechanic in 2018, predating the complaint's framing of how the system currently operates.

Beyond restitution, the Washington complaint asks the court to bar Valve from implementing loot box mechanics in its games going forward and to impose a fine equal to three times the amount of the company's gains from the alleged illegal practices. Valve has not publicly commented on either the Washington class-action or the New York suit. With both cases now active simultaneously, the outcomes could carry significant consequences not just for Valve but for any publisher running a similar case-and-key economy.