CS:GO Skin Gambling Explained

In what appears to be bizarre effort to avoid oversight for its loot boxes, the developers of Counter-Strike 2 esports|https://counterstrike2zone.com/: Global Offensive have added a controversial new feature. The new feature is exclusive to France, where lawmakers are currently evaluating new regulations regarding loot boxes and gambling in video games. The feature, in an extremely limited fashion, allows players to look inside of a loot box prior to spending money to unlock it. And Valve clearly believes it will help CS:GO avoid additional scrut

There have been mixed responses to this change in the comments of a post by CS:GO 's Twitter account, and on the r/csgo subreddit. Many decry the change for giving teams that inadvertently lose members from disconnects or those that kick potentially "toxic" individuals a more substantial disadvantage. Others suggest players have abused the bot system by kicking out other users they deem to be less useful on the battlefield, but even then many feel there was likely a better solut

Here's how the full feature technically works. In CS:GO , players are able to either earn loot boxes through gameplay or buy them from other players. However, these loot boxes can only be opened by paying for a key. The new feature is called the X-Ray Scanner and allows players to place one loot box into it to reveal the item inside. However, and here's the trick, once an item has been scanned by the X-Ray Scanner, players will have "claim" the item buy purchasing a key to unlock it before being able to look inside another loot

Kaer Morhen is an important locale in CD Projekt Red's Witcher franchise, Andrzej Sapkowski's book series, and Netflix's television adaptation. Unsurprisingly, the keep a lot of deep lore behind it , and players will be able to spy a number of references to the events of the game series sprinkled throughout the

It's currently unclear why Valve moved forward with these changes in France, in particular. So far France has not enacted any new regulations to account for loot boxes in video games, though French courts did recently rule that Steam has to allow users to resell their digital games . In 2018, the French online gambling regulatory body even assessed that loot boxes were not gambling under the country's current regulation. Perhaps Valve is using France as a testing bed or perhaps the decision is intended to shift discourse within the country or Europe. Either way, Valve certainly appears to be taking steps to protect the profits it receives from loot boxes amid the growing international controve

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been on the market for over 8 years, and during that time it has accrued a truly impressive variety of custom maps, including a number of levels adapted from earlier iterations of the series. But modders are still contributing fresh arenas to the game, including an impressive recent rendering of one of The Witcher 3 's most famous Loca

Even the most popular multiplayer games sometimes need to implement AI-controlled "bot" characters. These can play a number of roles, including filling out extra spots to get more game lobbies running, or giving beginning players easier targets in the case of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds implementing bots on PC last year . Valve's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has used bots to replace players who are dropped from a team, but as of today that is no longer the c

CS:GO is a staple title in the competitive shooting scene, but like any long-running game, the game's standard levels eventually wear thin. Modders help keep the game fresh for casual play by injecting extra mechanics, weapons, models, and arenas into the popular tactical shooter. Homage maps that port settings from other titles into the game are especially popu

As if that isn't frustrating enough, Valve has apparently "preloaded" the X-Ray Scanner with an item already. Meaning that players will have to purchase this item, regardless of whether they want it, in order to use the X-Ray Scanner on a loot box. The X-Ray Scanner may appear to be beneficial to players, but ultimately is just another effort at encouraging players to begin purchasing microtransactions . There's little reason to believe it's significantly beneficial over

In order to further contain CS:GO 's French marketplace, perhaps to avoid market manipulation through the use of X-Ray Scanners, Valve is making one additional change. Loot boxes can no longer be purchased from the Steam Community Market in France. All CS:GO players in the country will have to earn their own loot boxes. Though, naturally, Valve will still allow those players to sell their loot boxes to those in other countr

Even though S1mple draws impressive viewership numbers, no Twitch celebrity is above the law of the platform's community guidelines. Twitch famously banned the streaming mega-star, Dr. Disrespect , after controversial violations. That said, S1mple seems bothered more by the hypocrisy in his most recent ban, offering an explanation on Twit