https://youtu.be/Xk95QBBC_K4
I streamed the recording of episode #094, complete with the legal filings I mentioned in the previous post. This is probably a bit easier to follow along with than my rambling in the pure audio form.
But hey, this way, I probably get put on a nice blacklist somewhere.
While we were all going a little nuts over the CSGO drama involving PEA management/owners against its players, it seems that the same lawyers who’ve been on a crusade against Valve for the past few months filed another complaint in US federal court.
TopClassActions.com’s summary of the latest complaint seems to focus on Valve’s supposed violations of state underage gambling law. The class in this suite are the parents of minors who were given money to spend on the Steam Marketplace on skins, but did not know that they were funding their child’s intent to gamble via skins purchases.
I’m looking at the complaint documents now, and it seems like the complaint is written to mislead the court to which it was filed with regards to Valve’s responsibility in these matters. Valve’s initial response to this particular complaint seems to be encased in its motion to compel arbitration, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
As we’re presently in the midst of the holiday season, I imagine the matter is in a holding pattern for now. I’m looking over the documents filed to this point thanks to internet cool person keekerdc, but I imagine there’ll be copies floating out there eventually, with more to come when the holding pattern breaks in January.
See, I just knew the week between Christmas and New Year’s was going to deliver on some spicy esports drama. More to come.
Per a PCGamer writeup, Valve has announced this year’s Steam Awards shortlists and I think they’re pretty fair, considering games released this year and games with a rather long life being included in the nominations list.
So in this post, I’m just going to fire from the hip and fill out my ballot before voting begins on 22 December based on what’s been listed in the PCGamer article. There’s quite a few categories and the post is pretty long as a result, so I’m going to place the list after a jump. (In other news, the lowercase esports podcast rides again, sometime after sundown on the East Coast.)