I can't buy or sell csgo skins on community market

[Bee]

It says that it is blocked in my country the netherlands.
Pls help
Edit-the government changed the law today:D

[?!]

Apparently it's to comply with your loot box law, so there's nothing you can do about it.

[B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t]

That is because your country has banned it.

[Longhaul]

Nothing you can do about it. Some governments just suck!

[Theblaze]

Before this comes up: No, it wasn't Valve's idea, it was your Government idea so if you want to complain, send a letter to your Government.

[Theblaze]

Originally posted by SpunkyJones:

Originally posted by Ms Beak:

Except that goes against the user agreement you signed here on Steam, but whatever, right?

On top of that, he wants him to bypass the laws of his country.

And getting his steam account at risk.

[just.nuke.em]

But think of all the real, coherent things you can actually spend your money on now!

[RiO]

Originally posted by Ms Beak:

Apparently it's to comply with your loot box law, so there's nothing you can do about it.

Originally posted by B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t:

That is because your country has banned it.

Originally posted by Daynox:

Nothing you can do about it. Some governments just suck!

Originally posted by Theblaze:

Before this comes up: No, it wasn't Valve's idea, it was your Government idea so if you want to complain, send a letter to your Government.

For everyone's information: the above posters are all wrong and bought into the sad sob-story Valve published.

The reality is that Valve and several other publishers were deemed in violation of Dutch gambling laws by introducing real-world cost/benefit into a game of chance; the game of chance being the opening of the loot boxes and the real-world cost/benefit being the ability to buy or sell lootboxes and/or keys to open those boxes; and the ability to sell the winnings from opened boxes on the Steam marketplace.

They were given a 2 months deadline to shape up, or face fines. Valve waited until the last day to announce and put into effect a carpet-ban all trades and market access for CS:Go in an effort to comply and avoid fines; waiting until the last day to pull as much money as possible out of Dutch players performing CS:Go related transactions on the marketplace.

They could've taken those 2 months of time to find an elegant solution to the problem, e.g. by preventing the trading/buying/selling of boxes and keys; and the selling of only those items gained from boxes, but obviously they didn't.

Maybe they spent it trying to find a way to wiggle out of the law instead; or maybe they were convinced it was all a bluff and they were going to call that bluff. Or maybe they just decided on day one that investing into a proper solution wasn't worth it, and they just decided to keep their chosen 'solution' silent for 2 months to be able to mooch more dough off of players. Who knows...

One thing is for certain though:


VALVE is at fault here, not the Dutch government.



It's so stupid, because Valve could have easily come up with a less repressive, less reprehensible solution. They already have a solution to tag individually obtained items with a cooldown timer until they become marketable or tradable. They could easily have extended that system to mark individual items as unmarketable or untradable. As a kludge they could even have given them an expiry date for beyond the heat-death of the Sun and the end of all life on Earth.

But they chose not to.

They chose to invest the minimal effort involved, with the maximum amount of ire invoked in their playerbase; and then published a sob-story aimed at playing the innocent victim and painting government as the bad guy. A story that is all but plainly aimed at directing the Dutch playerbase's ire at their government; to potentially strengthen Valve's own bargaining position should they ever want or need to settle something out of court.


Again:

VALVE is at fault here; and VALVE is the bad guy.
Not the Dutch government; VALVE.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by RiO:

Again:

VALVE is at fault here; and VALVE is the bad guy.
Not the Dutch government; VALVE.

Slow down there sport.

You may want to talk to all the other developers and publishers about having their own item markets first.

[RiO]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by RiO:

Again:

VALVE is at fault here; and VALVE is the bad guy.
Not the Dutch government; VALVE.

Slow down there sport.

You may want to talk to all the other developers and publishers about having their own item markets first.

:qr:

Out of 10 popular games with lootboxes that were reviewed by the Dutch gambling authority, 4 games were found in violation. Titles of the games were not actually published at that time. (I presume to protect their public image and give publishers the time to fix things?)

After expiry of the deadline, we know that one of those games was Fifa. Not because the name was published, but because EA themselves confidently announced they would not change a thing in the game's lootbox setup; claiming they legally have the right of it and are confident that should the case go to court, they will emerge as the winner.

The only other 2 games that broke news were DOTA and CS:Go, both operated by Valve, and both of which had their market transactions and direct-trading geo-blocked in the Netherlands.


So, as far as we know the only publisher to have pulled this type of draconic move and screw over the playerbase, only to then play the victim in the matter ... is Valve.

[Rogue_Zephyr (Meta)]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Slow down there sport.

You may want to talk to all the other developers and publishers about having their own item markets first.

:qr:

Out of 10 popular games with lootboxes that were reviewed by the Dutch gambling authority, 4 games were found in violation. Titles of the games were not actually published at that time. (I presume to protect their public image and give publishers the time to fix things?)

After expiry of the deadline, we know that one of those games was Fifa. Not because the name was published, but because EA themselves confidently announced they would not change a thing in the game's lootbox setup; claiming they legally have the right of it and are confident that should the case go to court, they will emerge as the winner.

The only other 2 games that broke news were DOTA and CS:Go, both operated by Valve, and both of which had their market transactions and direct-trading geo-blocked in the Netherlands.


So, as far as we know the only publisher to have pulled this type of draconic move and screw over the playerbase, only to then play the victim in the matter ... is Valve.

I can imagine all those dutch hackers crying into their morning joint.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by RiO:

Again:

VALVE is at fault here; and VALVE is the bad guy.
Not the Dutch government; VALVE.

But if the Dutch would loosen their restirctions on gambling, Valve would have to ban Dutch from their games. So really, the Dutch are at fault here.
How dare a government do something for their people and not bend over for a multibillion dollar business!

But yeah, it's a typical Valve move: kneejerk reaction, sledgehammer approach, and not a trace of admission of guilt all while being silent as ever.
They probably ran the numbers and determined it would be more work to do anything than Dutch players spend on their games.

[Count_Dandyman]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Originally posted by RiO:

Again:

VALVE is at fault here; and VALVE is the bad guy.
Not the Dutch government; VALVE.

But if the Dutch would loosen their restirctions on gambling, Valve would have to ban Dutch from their games. So really, the Dutch are at fault here.
How dare a government do something for their people and not bend over for a multibillion dollar business!

But yeah, it's a typical Valve move: kneejerk reaction, sledgehammer approach, and not a trace of admission of guilt all while being silent as ever.
They probably ran the numbers and determined it would be more work to do anything than Dutch players spend on their games.

Could be they are waiting to see EA's play and piggyback themselves onto the rulings from that if it works or they are making plans and preparing behind the scenes to get things changed instead.

Them closing the trading down doesn't mean they have given up and won't do anything just means they aren't dumb enough to flip the bird at lawmakers like EA have. This could all just be a temporary measure to make it clear they respect the law and will work within it until they can negotiate a safe middle ground between the all or nothing state things are currently in.

[Longhaul]

Originally posted by Daynox:

Nothing you can do about it. Some governments just suck!

Again!

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Count_Dandyman:

Originally posted by cinedine:

But if the Dutch would loosen their restirctions on gambling, Valve would have to ban Dutch from their games. So really, the Dutch are at fault here.
How dare a government do something for their people and not bend over for a multibillion dollar business!

But yeah, it's a typical Valve move: kneejerk reaction, sledgehammer approach, and not a trace of admission of guilt all while being silent as ever.
They probably ran the numbers and determined it would be more work to do anything than Dutch players spend on their games.

Could be they are waiting to see EA's play and piggyback themselves onto the rulings from that if it works or they are making plans and preparing behind the scenes to get things changed instead.

Them closing the trading down doesn't mean they have given up and won't do anything just means they aren't dumb enough to flip the bird at lawmakers like EA have. This could all just be a temporary measure to make it clear they respect the law and will work within it until they can negotiate a safe middle ground between the all or nothing state things are currently in.

Of course.
But it shows one of the biggest problems Valve has: abyssmal PR. The silent threatment is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Valve is either entirely relying on the people RiO pointed out that shift the blame towards the other party in the public mindest or hope it will get over quickly. If you look into the history of such issues, there is little reason to be confident. Valve is known to pull out the sledgehammer for problems or ignore them.

And even though Valve's reputation has suffered a lot in the last years, there are still more than enough who think they are the patron saints of gaming and will gladly defend them from everything.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Theblaze:

Before this comes up: No, it wasn't Valve's idea, it was your Government idea so if you want to complain, send a letter to your Government.

Valve had two choices:
- Stop selling loot boxes that violate law
- Stop people from trading to circumvent law

So they choose to screw over the customers by using a loophole.