Counter-Strike 2 Loot Boxes: Valve’s $ 1 Billion Cash Cow in 2023

Valve, the developer of the Counter-Strike game series, cashed in on a staggering $1 billion from selling loot boxes in Counter-Strike 2 last year. This reignites the debate over whether loot boxes should be treated as gambling, according to Business Insider.

In case you don’t know: a loot box is a box that you can buy and open in the game. But you don’t know what’s inside until you open it. It could be something awesome that gives you an edge in the game or something lame. Basically, you’re paying for a shot at getting something good, which sounds a lot like gambling.

Let’s look at the numbers: players opened 400 million loot boxes in Counter-Strike last year, which added up to $980 million.

But that’s not the whole story. That doesn’t include the loot boxes that players bought through Steam or the CS2 online store. So the real revenue could be more than $1 billion.

Business Insider also shared some other facts: a study from the University of York found that 71% of the top games on Steam had loot boxes from 2010 to 2019.

And here’s the kicker: a lot of these games are played by minors, who are more likely to get hooked on gambling.

Business Insider points out that in the UK, people have been calling for loot boxes to be regulated as gambling for a long time. But instead of that, developers have been given some guidelines to follow, like putting “18+” labels and warning players about loot boxes in the game.