Valve has shut down the ability for players to buy and re-sell keys to access in-game loot boxes in the popular game Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) in a bid to combat money laundering.
Only recently, the company announced in a blog post that the online marketplace has been taken over by large fraud networks who exploit video game loot boxes to liquidate their gains.
In CS:GO, players can pay Valve real money for a key to unlock loot boxes. However, players can also buy keys and sell them to others online for profit. Although the amount paid for keys are small, this anonymous system of commerce has allowed criminals to launder dirty money using micro-transactions.
As a result, Valve has open announced that newly purchased keys will not be tradeable or marketable.
Resources
Valve’s original blog post: https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2019/10/26113/
News articles:
- https://futurism.com/the-byte/criminals-counter-strike-loot-boxes-launder-money
- https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/8xw7nx/nearly-all-counter-strike-microtransactions-are-being-used-for-money-laundering
- https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/30/csgo-fraud-loot-box-key-trades/
Check out theVideos of Interest to Law 423 on YouTube 
Communications Law
Join the Community!