It appears that players in The Netherlands can now view the contents of a Dota 2 lootbox before opening it.
It appears that Valve has made changes to how lootboxes work for Dutch players following a recent ruling from the Dutch Gambling Authority. Valve recently already disabled Steam trading and Marketplace transfers in the game after the Authority announced that it will be checking whether games using lootboxes are still in violation with Dutch gambling laws on penalty of huge fines.
Related Devil May Cry 5 Director Proud of DmC: Devil May Cry, Learned a Lot From Ninja Theory
“They are designed as gambling games are designed, with the feeling that you have almost won”, the director of the Authority said back in April. “There are all sorts of sound effects and visual effects when you open such a loot box, so you have a tendency to play through and through.”
“I call on all game companies not to make loot boxes accessible to children anymore and to remove addictive elements.”
On Reddit, user ‘Larhf’ shared a screenshot of the Dutch Dota 2 lootbox change, and writes that he’s no longer able to purchase multiple lootboxes at the same time.
Related Piper Jaffray Sales Estimates: COD 21.5M, BFV 16M, RDR2 15.5M, Anthem 4.5M
Valve’s new change appears to be bypass this ruling at it removes the gambling component of lootboxes – the player now knows exactly what he or she will be receiving.
Whether this change is permanent remains to be seen, but it’s likely that Valve will be making the same changes to lootboxes in other titles – at least, for players in The Netherlands for now.
