Valve noted that the attorney general had first reached out to the company in early 2023 where it had made similar comparisons. The studio also said that its players “don’t have to open mystery boxes” in order to play its games. “In fact, most of you don’t open any boxes at all and just play the games—because the items in the boxes are purely cosmetic, there is no disadvantage to a player not spending money.”

As for the lawsuit itself, Valve has said that it has “serious concerns” about the changes the New York attorney general wants the company to make to its games. Among these changes is making loot boxes and their contents non-transferrable.

“We think the transferability of a digital game item is good for consumers—it gives a user the ability to sell or trade an old or unwanted item for something else, in the same way an owner can sell or trade a tangible item like a Pokemon or baseball card. NYAG proposes to take away users’ ability to transfer their digital items from Valve games. Transferability is a right we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do that.”

The company has also called out the attorney general’s proposal to gather “additional information” on each one of the players “on the off-chance someone in New York was anonymizing their location to appear outside of New York, such as by using a VPN.” This could lead Valve to implement invasive technologies for the purposes of this data collection, which would include age verification, despite payment processors already having age verification built into their systems.

“We respect New York’s right to determine the laws governing behavior in the state. We will of course comply if the New York legislature passes laws governing mystery boxes—something it has not done despite considering the issue a few times,” wrote the company. “Such laws would be the result of a public process, presumably with input from the industry and New York gamers. The type of commitments the NYAG demanded from Valve went far beyond what existing New York law requires and even beyond New York itself. It may have been easier and cheaper for Valve to make a deal with the NYAG, but we believed the type of deal that would satisfy the NYAG would have been bad for users and other game developers, and impacted our ability to innovate in game design.”

As for the attorney general’s comments attempting to draw correlations between video games, violence in the real world, and the effect this might have on children, Valve has said that they serve as “a distraction and a mischaracterization we’ve all heard before.” Closing things out, the company makes a note of “many studies” highlighting the “beneficial impact” that games have on their players, and that it will ultimately wait for a court’s decision on the matter rather than trying to settle with the state of New York.

“In Valve’s most popular game, the process resembles a slot machine, with an animated spinning wheel that eventually rests on a selected item. The randomly selected virtual items have no in-game functionality but can be sold online for money, with one item reportedly being sold for more than $1 million.”

The lawsuit alleges that, through this promotion, Valve has earned “billions of dollars” by luring players to engage with gambling in the hopes of winning these items.

“Illegal gambling can be harmful and lead to serious addiction problems, especially for our young people,” said James. “Valve has made billions of dollars by letting children and adults alike illegally gamble for the chance to win valuable virtual prizes. These features are addictive, harmful, and illegal, and my office is suing to stop Valve’s illegal conduct and protect New Yorkers.”

Aside from the monetary value of the items, the crux of the lawsuit seems to revolve around Valve’s use of loot boxes, which the press release compares with slot machines due to the random nature of the rewards. The nature of the loot boxes also results in some items being rarer than others, which in turn has the added effect of making them more valuable in the market.

The fact that third-party markets also exist, making it easier to liquidate money that would have otherwise remained in the Steam ecosystem, is also a major cause for concern. “Users can also connect their Valve accounts to third-party marketplaces where the virtual items can then be sold directly for cash. The [Office of the Attorney General]’s investigation found that Valve facilitates and even assists these third-party marketplaces in their operations.”

“The high value of Counter-Strike’s rare skins and the ease of liquidating items through third-party marketplaces have made Valve’s virtual items an attractive target for thieves. Valve has received hundreds of thousands of support requests from users reporting that their Steam accounts had been hacked, or that they had been tricked into transferring items to a bad actor.”

There is also a focus on how Valve’s loot boxes adversely affect children. James has noted that they can entice younger players into gambling their limited funds because the loot boxes have the potential to offer lucrative rewards.

While the press release hasn’t confirmed what kinds of damages or penalties James is seeking from Valve through this lawsuit, it has noted that she wants to “permanently stop Valve from promoting gambling features in its games,” while also divesting itself of its “ill-got gains”, and pay fines for the violation of New York’s laws.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution will allow for all players who’re using any GPU compatible with DirectX 11 or Vulkan to see improvements to the performance while still reaping the benefits of playing at high resolutions. Considering the already meager amount of horsepower required to run the game, the feature seems to be aimed directly towards players aiming for super high framerates on similarly high resolutions.

There’s still no news regarding when DLSS 2.0 would be integrated into the game, but the latest update seems to suggest that it might be sooner than later. The same update also adds a new Battle Pass and a free event type. 

When FSR launches on June 22, it will reportedly be supported by seven games, namely: The Riftbreaker, Anno 1800, Terminator Resistance, 22 Racing Series, Evil Genius 2, KingShunt, and Godfall.

Meanwhile, plenty of major upcoming games are also allegedly planning FSR support. The twelve games mentioned in the report are Far Cry 6, Resident Evil Village, Baldur’s Gate 3, DOTA 2, Farming Simulator 22, Forspoken, Swordsman Remake, Necromunda: Hired Gun, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt, Asterigos, Edge of Eternity, and Myst.

Finally, the report claims that currently, a total of 44 developers and publishers across the industry are working with AMD’S FSR. It’s a big list with several big names, including the likes of Bloober Team, Crystal Dynamics, Focus Home Interactive, Rebellion, Capcom, EA, Gearbox, Larian Studios, Obsidian Entertainment, Valve, Turtle Rock Studios, Koch Media, Avalanche Software, Ubisoft, WB Games, and many others.

This is still an unconfirmed report, so take it with a grain of salt for now, but with FSR launching in just a few days, we should begin getting much more concrete information very soon.

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently also said that they’re “excited by the potential” of FSR, and more details on support for Xbox Series X/S will be shared “soon.” Read more on that through here.

Dota 2’s hugely popular esports event The International won’t be taking place this year. However, there’s still a Battle Pass for players to invest in, which is now available for $10. That’s for the base version though – a level 50 Battle Pass will cost $30 while the level 100 Battle Pass costs $45.

In terms of rewards, there’s quite a lot to reap. Guilds have been introduced which allows players to group up together and earn bonuses (with Battle Pass owners being capable of creating a Guild). There are also daily contracts and weekly challenges to complete. Cavern Crawl returns with a new two-parter, Nightsilver and Foulfell, each offering items sets and Battle Points.

Valve is also touting a new “four-player maze of madness and mayhem” as part of this Summer’s event so stay tuned for more details on that. There’s also the Battle Gauntlet which challenges players to win three games in a row (before they lose two in a row). This grants a Battle Tier upgrade, 1500 Battle Points and much more for those who are feeling lucky. A percentage of Battle Pass sales will go towards the prize pool for The International 11 taking place in 2021.

Friendly Fire

We can’t really resist doing this in single-player games either. But sometimes, we just really have to know. Can our teammates go down in a cursing mess after too many bullets? Will the game boot you for it? Will your teammates boot you for it? You can also suffer a penalty to money (which is bad) or be killed in the next round and not play (which, hey, free carry).

Despite competition from the likes the Fortnite World Cup, Valve’s Dota 2 tournament The International continues to rule in terms of prize pool. The grand total for this year’s prize pool has crossed $30 million, making it the largest for any esports tournament in history.  It’s a significant step up from last year’s $25. million prize pool.

The prize pool is all the more intriguing when factoring in how it’s been raised. Valve releases a Battle Pass with different cosmetics and access to new features and events for $9.99. About one-fourth of the total revenue earned goes towards the prize pool for The International.

Epic Games dedicated $100 million to Fortnite esports when the year started with the Fortnite World Cup having a prize pool of $30 million. It’s a given that cosmetic and Battle Pass sales for the game have contributed to this total. But to see Dota 2 retain its esports presence after all these years while being a PC-exclusive title is good news indeed.

The International 2019 will start on August 15th, with the Group Stage and culminates in the Main Event from August 20th to 25th in Shanghai.

Forgetting Where You Are

It’s one thing to know that you’re Kassandra, the Misthios who’s fighting for her family and to discover her true purpose. It’s quite another to load in to a map you barely remember, on the outskirts of some outpost, not sure whether you were friends with the Athenians or Spartans and who suffered from your decisions. Don’t even get us started on loading into Fallout 4 with your custom character, unsure of the mess you’ve made or which faction you aligned with.

After the success of Drodo Studio’s Dota Auto Chess, a custom game mode which reimagines Dota 2 as a tactical strategy game, Valve has announced that it will be making its own version of the same. Drodo Studio had been working on a non-Dota version of the game for China, and will now receive Valve’s help for the same. This announcement comes after the two studios spoke about collaborating.

“In February we flew the Drodo team over from China to chat about the future of Dota Auto Chess, and to see if they’d want to collaborate directly with us,” Valve wrote. “We had great conversations, but we both came to the conclusion that Valve and Drodo could not work directly with each other for a variety of reasons. We ended up agreeing that we’ll each build our own stand-alone version of the game, and support each other to the fullest.”

Any progress made to Dota Auto Chess will be migrated over to the mobile Auto Chess version with Valve’s help. As for the official Dota Auto Chess, Valve has said that more information will be available “soon.” Considering how badly Artifact flopped, we’ll have to wait and see how Valve handles this.

Then again, the company did take what was essentially a Warcraft 3 mod and turn it into one of the most popular games worldwide. Whether Dota Auto Chess from Valve can capture the same feeling as its inspiration or even surpass it remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more information on the same in the coming months.

"Perhaps now more than ever, there are games that players tend to invest an unnatural amount of hours into to the exclusion of everything else."

At the time, I couldn’t really imagine putting that many hours into video games over such a period of time, let-alone for a single title. There were the marathon sessions with Borderlands 2 but once it was done, it was done. Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer was good for a round or two of Silver difficulty, and then back to work. But a thousand hours, even for someone who might have been in college at the time, sounded nuts. Of course, you’ve probably seen people who aren’t in college racking up those numbers as well. Today, it isn’t about hitting 1000 hours in a year or something along those lines.

A quick glance at my Steam friends list tells the story. 1897 hours in Dota 2. 466 hours in Warframe. 6249 hours in Dota 2. 678 hours in Counter-Strike: GO. 1043 hours in Dota 2. 343 hours in Dark Souls 3. 620 hours in Don’t Starve Together. That’s not including the hundreds of hours that friends have put into Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Destiny, Destiny 2 and so on. I’m no different, mind you, with 444 hours in Warframe, 201 hours in Path of Exile and 234 hours on Clicker Heroes (the less you know the better).

Back in the day, it was about owning the hottest new games and expanding one’s collection. It still is to a degree but perhaps now more than ever, there are games that players tend to invest an unnatural amount of hours into to the exclusion of everything else. Some do it for the additional challenge or to open up an intriguing new experience – no-damage runs in Dark Souls or deathblow-only runs in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice are a few examples. But the number of titles that are demanding your continued investment, your every free hour to their cause, is definitely higher than before.

"It’s not like everyone dispenses such updates in a piece-meal-followed-by-epic-buffet fashion (with some tiny morsels in between)."

Such titles often fall into the “live service” or “games-as-a-service” category. Titles like Warframe have login rewards, building times, Alerts (which were refashioned into Nightwave for an even stronger form of FOMO or Fear Of Missing Out), Gifts of the Lotus, Prime Vault openings, Prime Part removals, Baro Ki’Teer with his weekly wares, Arbitrations with their constant mission cycling, the list goes on. The amount of time required to even learn and leverage the game’s mechanics, forget clearing the entire Star Map, is fairly hefty in its own right. A feeling of community is thus fostered among all the players who are constantly plugging away at the game, digesting each new bit of weapons, cosmetics, Ephemera, mods and what have you before completing their slate of rituals. Of course, then a massive update like Fortuna, Profit-Taker, Nightwave, the upcoming Railjack and The New War roll around to demand even more time

It’s not like everyone dispenses such updates in a piece-meal-followed-by-epic-buffet fashion (with some tiny morsels in between). Path of Exile drops massive updates with each new Challenge League, introducing heaps of new mechanics to try out and new items, spells, class changes and so on to make a new playthrough compelling. It even changes the core game, allowing those happily grinding away to have some new stuff to enjoy.

However, there are also games like Monster Hunter World. It introduces new timed event quest (usually available for a weeks) that adds new items and cosmetics to earn every few months or so. Once out of circulation, other timed event quests return, filling out a list of things-to-do and monsters-to-slay for the week. The base game itself is massive enough to facilitate replaying. You can pick up an entirely different weapon tree, go back to square one to learn all of its nuances, and net dozens of hours of fun as you progress through its various upgrade paths. The build variety coupled with farming Tempered Elder Dragons and Decorations alone will take up a lot of your time, to say nothing of the co-op quests and SOS Flares that you respond to.

"Once again though, when you take all of the above into account, it’s interesting to see titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt command so much time."

Is Monster Hunter World a games-as-a-service title? No. It doesn’t dole out little bits of content each month. It can be played offline. There’s no real fear of missing out (even if there are login rewards) because all the content eventually cycles back in. That’s not including the Seasonal Festivals that see all timed event quests return. Regardless, there is a hefty amount of investment required for this Monster Hunter title. The same could be said of its predecessors over the years.

It’s a bit easier to see why multiplayer titles get so much commitment from players. That competitive grind, the desire utterly brutalize your opponent and emerge on top, is hard to shake once you’ve gotten a taste for it. Furthermore, each game can turn out different since you’re facing another living breathing person as opposed to AI with predetermined patterns. So if you throw in varying layers of strategy and hero diversity (Dota 2, League of Legends), a huge map to conquer and ways to either play nice or go to war with neighbours (Endless Legend, Anno) and a wide map with numerous possibilities for conflict (insert battle royale title), it’s no wonder that certain games can net thousands of hours of playtime solely on the basis of their multiplayer.

Once again though, when you take all of the above into account, it’s interesting to see titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt command so much time. Even if you don’t factor in their online components or meaty updates, these are games that you can easily sink a good 100 to 200 hours into. Those may seem like rookie numbers compared to many live service games but if you’re the average working class individual with limited playtime every week, that’s essentially your game for the next month or two. Though Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has its own range of randomly generated contracts and events, it still provides a couple hundred of hours of gameplay if you decide to stick to the main story and side quests.

"Several games do tend to leverage the “sunk cost fallacy” to keep people invested way past the point of having fun."

There are plenty of games that require some kind of investment from a player. In a way, that’s not so bad. I can’t really fault people for indulging in a game like Overwatch for three years straight, playing on and off, partaking in the new events, heroes and maps. After all, they’re having fun and still getting their money’s worth. It also doesn’t hurt that players feel a sense of accomplishment from their investment. Achievements granting different sprays for tasks, Competitive Play with its placement matches and ranks each season, a shifting meta that has you coming back and mastering different things also ensure that players keep coming back.

Several games do tend to leverage the “sunk cost fallacy” to keep people invested way past the point of having fun. You could look at those who play Destiny 2 and mock their suffering as they struggle to complete the various collections of armour, lore, Triumphs and weapons in the game. However, some people have fun with that and revel in it. Even if Bungie inevitably nerfs a hard-earned weapon like Luna’s Howl or Not Forgotten, some players want that kind of chase and to be rewarded with such a powerful weapon. Yes, even if it inevitably becomes a lesser version of itself somewhere down the line.

Look at a game like Dead Cells (who’s end-game system I’ll be covering in greater depth in another article). That’s a game that presents so many different things to unlock. There are dozens of Blueprints for weapons, mutations, secondary abilities, etc across the three core statistics. Unlocking those takes a fair bit of time in terms of the number of Cells to collect, especially if you factor in all of the upgrading required for the Forge to get higher tier items.

"Games that require hefty investment from players have their advantages but it’s understandable why some choose to partake in more immediately gratifying games."

From the perspective of your average consumer though, Dead Cells is a game that provides instant gratification. It’s a game where you pop in and experience the awesome combat, seeing how far you can get based on the items obtained. Beat the final boss, maybe do a few more runs, that sort of thing. There are plenty of people who will never mod their games, mess around with the Custom Mode or even bother with the Boss Stem Cells. And it’s not because they’re uninterested in tougher challenges – it’s because they got their stellar, sleekly produced hours-long rogue-lite experience. For others, slaving through and having everything while still enjoying the amazing combat is where it’s really at.

Games that require hefty investment from players have their advantages but it’s understandable why some choose to partake in more immediately gratifying games. We’re talking about titles like Life is Strange, Hyper Light Drifter, Layers of Fear, Metro Exodus or even Mortal Kombat 11’s Story Mode. Such games have a somewhat limited replay value attached to them since the experience itself doesn’t change drastically when you go back. Instead, it’s more about the overall quality of the experience, from the Zelda-esque exploration and dungeons of Hyper Light Drifter to the epic, seasonal journey of Metro Exodus.

These are games that you can easily pop into for an hour or two and pretty much have a good time. There isn’t a long list of activities to complete and the narrative is generally top-notch. You’re along for the ride, meeting all these different characters and experiencing unique events. The story may have a profound effect on you by the time the credits roll.

Instant gratification games don’t necessarily have to be solid story-based games either. They can also be titles like Dungeon of the Endless, a combination of role-playing, tower defense, dungeon-crawling and real-time strategy. Though a single romp through a specific “pod” can take a good 2 to 2.5 hours, the entire experience is broken up into bite-sized floors that are easy to clear. Even when you’re learning the game for the first time, there isn’t that feeling of being overwhelmed like, say, Stellaris or Endless Legend. It’s not 3 AM in the blink of an eye as you wonder how it all went wrong.

"There’s more going on than just the desire for improvement the hook of the grind or that insatiable hunger for content."

Let’s take a much simpler example – Crackdown 3. This is a game that is so straightforward, so absolutely simplistic in getting to the action that it’s almost a dumb throwback to its predecessors. Explore the city, blow up enemies, collect some things here and there, maybe liberate some outposts, repeat. There’s platforming and shooting. Characters are telling you things that don’t really matter all that much – funny quips, mission objectives et al. But you’re having a fun time. It’s dumb and utterly pointless gaming distilled to its core.

Perhaps the line between instant entertainment and hearty investment boils down more to the person playing. You may spend a good 90 hours completing Persona 5 but someone else might play the game multiple times, mastering every single Social Link, completing the secret battles and just replaying it tirelessly because they love it. I put a good 89 hours into Divinity: Original Sin 2 and haven’t touched the Definitive Edition. But I know that if I went back, exploring different Origins stories, trying different classes and experiencing all the changes that I could easily put in another 100 hours or more into the game. Then you have games like ABZU or Journey which take only a handful of hours to complete but whose emotional impact makes them worth coming back to again and again.

Games, in general, have the potential to hook people. The ways they do this may vary. Perhaps they’re designed to keep players invested, all for the sake of daily active user numbers and monthly spending. It could also be the result of a developer packing in as much content as possible to provide a worthwhile experience, that so-called “bang” for the player’s buck. However, even titles that don’t have that same goal in mind and simply want to present a message can have players revisiting them for years and years. Seeing someone rack up that many hours may appear strange but it’s more than just dedication. There’s more going on than just the desire for improvement the hook of the grind or that insatiable hunger for content.

"Perhaps this borders on an unhealthy obsession, to give so much of yourself to a game that there’s no real alternative beyond it."

Sometimes, it’s just that indelible urge to keep playing way past the point of a game feeling fresh, to the extent that you instinctively know everything that’s going to happen. Every enemy attack and parry window in Dark Souls 3. Every cheese and exploit in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Every mechanic in every raid of Destiny 2. Every little detail of every faction in Endless Legend necessary to win a game despite starting out in the worst possible areas. Every optimal weapon and trick in the book to beat Enter the Gungeon, going all the way to Bullet Hell and back without taking damage in the various boss fights. Every composition that has the potential to completely fall flat in Overwatch not because of the lack of damage or heroes picked but because of the positions and errors that your teammates make.

And sometimes, you’re just like that guy who played a single game of for ten years straight, chronicling the tale of three factions locked in eternal war with nukes and an irradiated landscape. You’re just there to see how it all pans out.

Perhaps this borders on an unhealthy obsession, to give so much of yourself to a game that there’s no real alternative beyond it. Then again, perhaps it’s a passion that simply feeds on how much fun you’re having. Whatever the case may be, whether you’re in it for the long or short haul, it’s interesting how so many different types of games have a way of drawing the player in and never letting go. Whether it’s the looter shooter of the month or a rogue-lite survival game that lets you endlessly break its difficulty in new and fascinating ways, there truly is a game for everyone to get invested in.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.